Monday, January 25, 2010

I've decided I need to keep better track of my dreams. Up till now, it's been a sort of half-assed, I-really-should-do-this type intention, but I had a dream odd enough last night to warrant some attention. My dreams are always pretty vivid, and this was no exception, but this one was rife with meanings I can't help but think will be more apparent upon reflection.

It's also worth mentioning that this was a dream that seemed very long-lasting but no doubt wasn't, and that it occurred in that period after dawn but before time to wake up.

I was traveling with a certain person (doesn't matter who, at least not to you) on a bus going down a dirt road. The road itself was grey and sandy, with low-lying scrub on either side. It wasn't like anything I'd seen before, but it had elements of I-10 and I-20 in east Texas and a ride I took on a bus through the Yucatan in Mexico.

We were at the back of the bus, and I was thrilled to be on a bus on an unpaved road, though I have no idea why. The bus was open to the air in the back, and the over-all effect was rather like being in the back of a Jeep with its top off, or maybe the back of a open-air cattle hauler. I had my iPod with me and was planning on watching something on it.

The next part of the dream was at something like a rest stop or a bus station. My grandmother (who died a little less than a year ago) was there, and I was quite excited and a little nervous to introduce her to the guy I was with. I remember giving her a hug and her saying something, but I don't recall what.

My next recollection is that we're driving down another unpaved lane. I don't know why but I think it was in Texas. My mother is now present amongst the other people, and she tells me we've just passed a sign that says "The elevation will be 7 feet in 7 miles." I am very disappointed that I was unable to take a picture of this sign with the camera I got for Christmas this year.

Before very much longer has passed, we go by a most unusual place. My first impression is that it's a pit mine or quarry -- there's a big hole and it feels like the afternoon sun is putting much of it in shadow. There's a lot of pinks and salmons and oranges and ochres, and later thought makes me think of Escalante National Park, if only in color range. But in the middle, there's a high mountain jutting up, catching the sun. After the fact -- as in, immediately after, when I awoke, but not in the actual moment -- for some reason, I thought of Mount Doom from the Lord of the Ring films. At that moment, a quarry charge went off, removing a substantial hunk of the side of the mountain. We watched the side of the mountain explode and then watched as the rubble rained around us, and hit the roof of the bus in small(ish) rocks. The only thing I've ever seen the like, I think, was in The Hand of Fear, and it was not very similar to that.

Not long after that, there was another, larger explosion on the mountain side that resulted in far larger rubble flying down. This time, the stones were large enough to crush a bus like ours, and watching the falling stones, there was no guarantee my bus would have been spared. I don't know if it would have been: (I think, though I'm not 100% sure), our bus was heading for a cave in a rock face -- a square hole in a sheer cliff -- when there was a sudden lurch, as if we were all falling. This is what woke me up. It was extremely visceral, the sensation of falling.

What makes me wonder is that this is the second time in less than two weeks, I've been woken up by a dream that involves falling off a roadway in a vehicle. Odd.